J.J. Martin on La DoubleJ’s Business Expansion, New Book and Sisterhood Community
MILAN — “I surrendered to the Italian way of life,” says J.J. Martin in an interview at Milan’s famed Pasticceria Cucchi. “I caved to the power of this great country.”
In her book, “Mamma Milano,” which will available starting Tuesday, the Los Angeles-born editor turned entrepreneur and founder of La DoubleJ recalls her early days in the Italian city, moving from Manhattan in 2001 with “no job, no friends and no patience” for the local lifestyle, which she eventually realized she needed to embrace and grew to love. In doing so, she has built a successful business.
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Her journey is revealed in the book, which is more than an autobiography, reflecting her joyful and energetic attitude, and a collection of “lessons” on Italian fashion, food and style, as it also shines the light on some of Italy’s leading female tastemakers. It includes “The School of Sciura [elite housewife] rulebook,” from Angela Missoni and Moschino’s Rossella Jardini to Rossana Orlandi, Patricia Urquiola and Nina Yashar or Max Mara’s Laura Lusuardi, as well as Martin’s “guardian angels,” Maureen Chiquet, now chairwoman of the company, or Marie-Louise Sciò and Molly Molloy.
While veering into spiritual musings throughout the interview, Martin is clearly passionate about her work and speaks of La DoubleJ as her baby and “a living entity.”
Her “baby’s” revenues in 2022 grew more than 50 percent over the year prior, and Martin said she expects to close 2023 almost 20 percent above last year, while not disclosing the amounts.
Martin holds the role of co-chief executive officer with her business partner and ex-husband Andrea Ciccoli, CEO of The Level Group, the e-commerce partner of a range of luxury brands including La DoubleJ itself. A former Bain & Co. partner, he “has been instrumental” in helping develop a business plan for the brand, and “he understands digital in a way that most people don’t,” said Martin, noting that the business is equally split between direct-to-consumer and wholesale. La DoubleJ now counts 70 full-time employees in Italy.
The brand’s first store opened in Milan in 2021, located on central Via Sant’Andrea, near Chanel and opposite Bottega Veneta, and a few steps away from Via Montenapoleone.
Martin said she wanted the store “to look unlike anything else” in the tony shopping area. To wit, downstairs, she installed “a Divine Mother cave, a Goddess cave.”
A day earlier, she had hosted a spiritual event for around 15 people, and every Thursday night, there is a yoga class. “So this is the whole Sisterhood part,” she said, waving away the concept of lifestyle that includes opening a hotel or launching a collection of plates. “What I’m realizing is changing today, and what people want and what they mean by their lifestyle, is their well-being. It’s their mental, emotional, spiritual and energetic well-being. It’s not just a spa day, you know. And there are more and more people dying for ways to expand their consciousness and and expand their awareness. A lot of brands are hosting a yoga event where they’re having an astrologer at a cocktail party. Like, that’s great. But this is a real program. This is my own life that I am bringing to our community. Our community is called the Sisterhood. We have done countless numbers of retreats, workshops, online and in-store.”
She underscored that none of the community building was given to her by a marketing person. “All of this was developed from my own intuition and from my own real sense of connection, communication and duty.”
Martin admitted that the Milan store “was a real eye-opener for me of how I needed to develop the collections because you can’t just have wall-to-wall prints.” Last April, the brand opened a directly operated store in Taormina, Italy, which was “a runaway success,” she said, “70 percent over budget.” The collections are now sold in more than 200 stores around the world.
“We are currently looking for a space in New York. Last month we opened shop-in-shop in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice and it’s a huge thing, it’s the kickoff of a six-month branded presence expansion that we are having with our wholesale partners. Simultaneously, a more expansive shop in Harrods opened. In Portugal, we just opened an amazing shop-in-shop in Comporta. We’ve just opened up at Harvey Nichols. Ten different locations will be unveiled throughout Europe and a homeware shop-in-shop at Bloomie’s is coming up next by the end of the year. The homeware, we never really thought it was going to be a moneymaker, but actually it’s almost 10 percent of our turnover,” she offered.
America is the brand’s biggest market, followed by Europe, in particular, the U.K., Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. “Then our next market is the Middle East. We’ve had some wonderful shops-in-shop over the last year and when you ask about my future, we need to consolidate there. We want to find a partner there. We want to open up direct stores. That’s really our next foray. So we’re going to wait a minute before going to Asia,” she said.
La DoubleJ has been developing its own personal shopping department, “which I think is very interesting and modern and we are engaging directly now with our top 5 percent of customers, and personal shopping is 54 percent over budget this year. Another really important point, we never go on sale in any of our direct-to-consumer channels. We’re also set up so that we can re-assort in-season, which is very unique with a high-end brand,” she said.
Last year, the brand took over the pool area of Passalacqua, a new luxury retreat on Lake Como relaunched by the family behind Grand Hotel Tremezzo. “This is a permanent design for their pool and bar area and restaurant, and the [World’s 50 Best Organization] named it as the World’s Best Hotel for 2023. This has led to much exposure for the brand. We’re getting a lot of requests now from other hotels to do partnerships, so that’s something I’m considering,” Martin said.
La DoubleJ has a specific colorful imagery of prints, and asked about weathering the different cycles of fashion such as minimalism, Martin said that “everybody wants a printed dress in the summertime — even the most minimal Phoebe Philo acolyte. Like, she wants a printed summer dress for her vacation in Greece. Every single one of them.”
At the same time, she points to the idea of “degrees of maximalism,” adding a sapphire blue Murano glass or a printed napkin on an all-white table set. “I also found that a lot of those minimal girls, they love to have fun with the more sporty elements. So we’re doing right now a really good business in outerwear. We’re doing incredible puffer jackets, a lot of them are jacquard, they’re brocade, we’ve differentiated our materials, not just a cotton poplin or a silk twill. Our prices are significantly lower and that’s because we’ve had from the very beginning a desire to offer the right product that is very high quality at the fair price,” she said, placing the brand’s range at around 30 percent less than her luxury competitors.
“You can have all the attention in the world, all the fawning, all of the accolades, but you just have to sell the product. And I think that this is what’s been so amazing. I think women are really resonating with a product that is joyful. Our mission is to wrap the world in joy. So it’s kind of like these are really basic principles of human well-being that really resonate with people. Because I think that fashion for so many years has been armor and protection, and instead the way I look at it is like this sort of outward antenna of your inner well-being and your joy and your invitation to other people to come in and join in your sphere,” Martin said.
Martin does not define herself as a designer, but as the creative director of the brand, “coming up with the inspiration behind every collection. I started by genuinely trying to do a product that was useful, like a dress that could fit every body shape.” Footwear is still a small collection and handbags have not been developed yet.
Asked about her mentors or designers she looks up to, she said Tory Burch has been “tremendously helpful,” as has Chiquet.
She started her career as an account executive at an ad agency in New York and San Francisco and then continued in marketing at Calvin Klein in New York. After moving to Milan to follow Ciccoli, she began to write for publications including Harper’s Bazaar and Wallpaper, before launching La DoubleJ in 2015 as a shoppable magazine selling clothing and jewelry.
“At the beginning I never had dreams to have a fashion company,” she confessed.
Martin said the book took shape because she wanted to share her journey, her life in the country and “the things I learned” from the women she admires. “I don’t want this to just be a cliché coffee table book of elegant table settings. I really want to tell my story and how Italy impacted me and transformed me,” hoping to spur creativity in the readers.
America today is the brand’s biggest market. “I was able to give a lens into this world and almost be like a translator being from California, growing up in Los Angeles. And the book really talks about how once I got out of my phase that you’ve seen a lot of Americans in, of criticism and judgement, I finally just relented, I surrendered. I said fine, let’s just go with the way Italy flows. That’s the mamma divine mother energy.”
The brand is entirely made in Italy, she underscored. “Almost all of our fabrics are done in Como with Mantero, but obviously they don’t do knitwear or jerseys. So we have other suppliers for that. All of our porcelain for the homeware is being made in Verona with Ancap, all of the glassware is being made in Murano with Salviati. All of our table linens are made outside of Milan with Mascioni. Sono bravissimi [they are very skilled],” she said, breaking now and then into perfect Italian. She admitted to the challenges given the higher costs, but, developing the relationship, “the more that we can help them expand their business, the more they help us and then everyone is doing better.”
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